:00:04. > :00:07.It was one of those special moments in time when two great talents
:00:07. > :00:11.collided - a famous writer and an eccentric painter, both with a
:00:11. > :00:14.passion for the place Thomas Hardy called Wessex. And the result -
:00:14. > :00:22.magnificent creativity and beauty, which the world never really got to
:00:22. > :00:24.see. That is, until now. This is the Dorset which inspired Thomas
:00:24. > :00:27.Hardy, and which in turn inspired Dorchester-born painter John
:00:27. > :00:36.Everett - the Dorset that features in a set of paintings which have
:00:36. > :00:39.barely seen the light of day. These hidden treasures not only shed new
:00:39. > :00:49.light on the life of Thomas Hardy, but also offer a magical snapshot
:00:49. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:15.In 1924, an artist called John Everett arrived on the south coast
:01:15. > :01:18.to put paint to canvas. Everett was a posh Edwardian, and he did what
:01:18. > :01:25.upper-class Edwardians did best, he indulged his passions. And
:01:25. > :01:29.Everett's top passion was painting. But Everett hadn't come to Dorset
:01:29. > :01:39.just to dreamily indulge a gentleman's hobby. He was here to
:01:39. > :01:39.
:01:39. > :01:42.work. He'd been asked to produce a series of illustrations for a book
:01:42. > :01:44.about his good friend Thomas Hardy. So, during the summer of 1924,
:01:44. > :01:48.Everett travelled around Dorset painting landscapes that related to
:01:48. > :01:52.Hardy's life and to his writing. But exactly what happened to these
:01:52. > :01:56.canvases after that was until now bit of a mystery. Of the thousands
:01:56. > :02:05.of oil paintings in our national collection, only a few can be on
:02:05. > :02:08.display at any one time. These works of art are owned by you and
:02:08. > :02:12.me, but most of us know very little about them. Some of our paintings
:02:12. > :02:17.are so hidden away, we don't know they exist, let alone get to see
:02:17. > :02:20.them. John Everett's paintings lay undiscovered for decades. My
:02:20. > :02:28.mission is to unearth some of these paintings, and the ones I'm rooting
:02:28. > :02:31.out will take me the length and breadth of Hardy's Wessex.
:02:31. > :02:35.My journey starts here in Dorchester, the location for one of
:02:35. > :02:38.Hardy's most famous novels, The Mayor Of Casterbridge. Until
:02:38. > :02:43.recently, the Dorset County Museum had no idea they were in possession
:02:43. > :02:45.of a collection of long-lost paintings by John Everett. But when
:02:45. > :02:53.art historian Gwen Yarker read Everett's will, she discovered a
:02:53. > :03:03.clue that led her to the archives. He'd left a collection of paintings
:03:03. > :03:08.to the museum, but where were they? After searching high and low, Gwen
:03:08. > :03:11.eventually found the paintings. They were in a box that had been
:03:11. > :03:14.hidden away in a corner, forgotten for decades. So, you went digging
:03:14. > :03:19.around looking for these works - how did you feel when you finally
:03:19. > :03:23.came across them, it must have been magical? It was. Very relieved and
:03:23. > :03:27.excited at the same time. It's always exciting to see a new body
:03:27. > :03:30.of work from an artist that you're working on. That must just never
:03:30. > :03:34.happen. How unusual is it to find a whole body of new work? It's
:03:34. > :03:38.extraordinary. Particularly somewhere where you're actually
:03:38. > :03:41.working, that was a particular surprise. It kind of demonstrates
:03:41. > :03:44.that in museums, there are always little dark corners where brown
:03:44. > :03:51.paper parcels are lurking, in this case, and lo and behold, there were
:03:51. > :03:54.all of these pictures. So what have we got? We have here for instance
:03:54. > :04:00.Corfe Castle, which is where Everett was living from 1907 to
:04:00. > :04:04.1911. And Woodbridge Manor, which appears in Tess Of The
:04:04. > :04:10.D'Urbervilles, and actually was where Everett was living in 1901.
:04:10. > :04:13.Is that the D'Urberville House? There's Puddletown Heath, this is a
:04:13. > :04:16.seminal view, Egdon Heath as we would have known it in Hardy's
:04:16. > :04:20.novels. They're not impressionistic, which is really very much Everett's
:04:20. > :04:24.style, because he's working on them with an eye to turning them into
:04:24. > :04:31.prints, to turn them into a book of Hardy's Wessex. This one of
:04:31. > :04:34.Sandsfoot Castle is a very strong graphic design. And also this one
:04:34. > :04:39.of Maumbury Rings, which shows the great sweep of the Roman
:04:39. > :04:43.amphitheatre. Clues to just how the paintings found their way to the
:04:43. > :04:46.Dorset County Museum can be found in the archives. In 1936, a letter
:04:46. > :04:49.from the museum arrived at Everett's home. A package of
:04:50. > :04:53.paintings had turned up and the curators wanted to know what to do
:04:53. > :04:56.with them. The paintings had been returned from America, where author
:04:56. > :05:01.Ernest Brennecke had been planning to publish them in a book called
:05:01. > :05:05.The Hardy Country. Everett wrote straight back that he'd wanted them
:05:05. > :05:08.returned to his home county. There's still lots of questions
:05:08. > :05:11.hanging over these paintings - why did he choose these locations?
:05:11. > :05:19.What's the connection with Hardy's novels? Did they ever see the light
:05:19. > :05:23.of day in Brennecke's book, and if not, why? I'd really like to track
:05:23. > :05:27.down the spots where he painted and find out more about Everett the man.
:05:27. > :05:29.This could be a good start for some of the answers. But before I set
:05:29. > :05:35.off, Gwen, who's planning to publish her research on Everett,
:05:35. > :05:39.has a challenge for me. I tell you what, Joe, what about when you've
:05:39. > :05:41.done that coming back and seeing me and actually choosing one of the
:05:41. > :05:44.Everett pictures which encaptures for you Hardy's landscape, and
:05:44. > :05:47.we'll hang it in the museum, hopefully in the literary gallery
:05:47. > :05:53.next to Hardy's own study. Really? So I get to choose one to go on
:05:53. > :06:03.display? It would be wonderful. will come back and see you. Look
:06:03. > :06:08.
:06:08. > :06:13.Dorset is Hardy country. So much of his work draws from this landscape.
:06:13. > :06:18.My first stop is Higher Bockhampton. I'm going in search of Hardy's
:06:18. > :06:22.roots. Now one of Everett's paintings is called Puddletown
:06:22. > :06:26.Heath, and Puddletown Forest surrounds us here. This was Hardy's
:06:26. > :06:29.backyard, he grew up in this cottage. Some of his classic works,
:06:29. > :06:39.Far From The Madding Crowd, and Under The Greenwood Tree, were
:06:39. > :06:46.
:06:47. > :06:50.Now, this painting just depicts plain heathland, but all I can
:06:50. > :07:00.really see here is a load of trees, so I don't know how easy it is
:07:00. > :07:16.
:07:16. > :07:21.going to be to actually find this Excuse me. I'm looking for this
:07:22. > :07:31.viewpoint, I don't know if you've seen it at all, have you? If you go
:07:32. > :07:37.
:07:37. > :07:41.up that way... Now, this looks like it could be the spot. It's really
:07:41. > :07:44.difficult to tell, this is the most likely place I've seen. The general
:07:44. > :07:47.landscape's right, we've got a bit of hill sweeping in, we've got, it
:07:47. > :07:54.almost looks like an island, that hill in the middle, and we've sort
:07:54. > :07:58.of got that in the picture. We've got wonderful light sweeping across
:07:58. > :08:01.the heath, which we've also got in the painting. But clearly the
:08:01. > :08:05.landscape has changed hugely. This is very plain, ever since there's
:08:05. > :08:08.been a lot of trees planted. The landscape's still changing today.
:08:08. > :08:16.They're chopping the trees down down there. So it might once again
:08:16. > :08:18.look like this quite soon. Difficult to tell, but this was
:08:18. > :08:21.obviously so important for Hardy, Egdon Heath. Not only was he
:08:21. > :08:24.brought up round here, but it really features very prominently in
:08:24. > :08:28.Return Of The Native and other works. In Native, it's almost a
:08:28. > :08:31.character, it's so central to the story. So it was really important
:08:31. > :08:36.that Everett would come here, he would capture this. This is one of
:08:36. > :08:41.the crucial Hardy landscape locations in Wessex. And you do get
:08:41. > :08:51.a sense of it from here, you really do. Yeah, I really think this could
:08:51. > :08:51.
:08:51. > :09:01.be it. The next painting isn't as difficult to track down, and takes
:09:01. > :09:10.
:09:10. > :09:14.This is Sandfoot Castle. It pops up in Hardy's novel The Well Beloved.
:09:14. > :09:18.Now, the first thing to say, looking at the castle today, is, it
:09:18. > :09:21.has barely changed at all from the painting. It was one of two castles
:09:21. > :09:28.built by Henry VIII in the 1530s, the other one being across on
:09:28. > :09:31.Portland. The idea being both would protect this bay. In the 400 years
:09:31. > :09:35.that followed, water eroded the cliff, and it has tumbled down into
:09:35. > :09:42.the sea. What I like about it is, I think it's been painted very
:09:42. > :09:45.cleverly. I think there's two paintings here, he's slightly
:09:45. > :09:49.cheated. The first painting is of the castle itself, very much as I'm
:09:49. > :09:54.standing right now, dead on to the structure of the ruins. But then
:09:54. > :09:56.there's nothing much in the background. So what Everett's done
:09:56. > :10:03.is, he's basically come across here, he keeps coming, keeps coming,
:10:03. > :10:06.until gradually, the Isle of Portland comes into view. It gives
:10:06. > :10:10.more of a sort of intimacy to the bay, it's much more interesting
:10:10. > :10:13.there's a lovely shape in the background. And also, you can see
:10:13. > :10:17.here, he's painted a number of ships, particularly one with its
:10:17. > :10:22.sails out. OK, today, it's not sailing ships, it's a military
:10:22. > :10:25.frigate or something. I think for the first time on this journey, we
:10:25. > :10:28.get a sense from this painting what Everett's key passion really was.
:10:28. > :10:31.Everett was obviously a hugely talented painter, and he had a
:10:31. > :10:35.strong connection with the landscape, but what else do we know
:10:35. > :10:40.about Everett the man? When you look at his life, it seems almost
:10:40. > :10:44.as chaotic as one of Hardy's books. For starters, his mother was pretty
:10:44. > :10:47.unconventional. When Everett enrolled on a prestigious art
:10:47. > :10:52.course in London, his mum not only travelled with him but also
:10:52. > :10:55.attended classes. She was by all accounts quite a character. Everett
:10:55. > :10:59.spent much of his childhood with recovering alcoholics whom his mum
:10:59. > :11:07.was trying to save. Perhaps no surprise that later in life he
:11:07. > :11:10.wanted to escape it all, and the sea was his retreat. Everett
:11:10. > :11:13.travelled widely, but always returned to Dorset and whiled away
:11:13. > :11:17.his days painting and sailing in his small cutter along the Dorset
:11:17. > :11:24.coast. It's not surprising that Dorset's varied shores feature in
:11:24. > :11:28.the collection. This painting of Gad Cliff near Tyneham is one of my
:11:28. > :11:30.favourites. Nick Beck also has a passion for the sea, and for the
:11:31. > :11:33.Amelie Rose, a replica pilot cutter similar to the one that Everett
:11:34. > :11:39.would have sailed. I'm catching a ride to that authentic Everett eye
:11:39. > :11:43.view, of the waters that he loved. What is it about this place that's
:11:43. > :11:46.so special? I think the south coast, obviously we get some sunshine,
:11:46. > :11:56.which is fantastic. There's also almost every different type of
:11:56. > :11:59.sailing available. You can go creek crawling, you can disappear up
:11:59. > :12:03.inside little rivers, you can go across big wide spaces, across Lyme
:12:03. > :12:06.Bay - you don't see the mainland for a good couple of hours as you
:12:06. > :12:09.go across. How do you feel when you're out here? There's nothing
:12:09. > :12:15.more that Everett liked doing than seemingly to escape and spend some
:12:16. > :12:19.time on his own. I don't know if he painted out here or saw it and took
:12:19. > :12:24.it back with him, but what sort of feeling do you get? For me, it's
:12:24. > :12:28.just fantastic, it's freedom. I used to work in an office. It's
:12:28. > :12:31.just lovely to get out here where there's no real rules. The only
:12:31. > :12:35.thing you're working is the tides and the weather, and whatever's
:12:35. > :12:38.going on around you. And that gives you more than enough. There's
:12:38. > :12:41.always something going on to keep your brain going, but it's just
:12:41. > :12:46.incredibly relaxing, because you just get into what we call boat
:12:46. > :12:49.time. This is probably as good as it gets, isn't it? This is the sort
:12:49. > :12:53.of day he'd have longed for. sure he would have said a bit more
:12:53. > :12:56.wind! We're going a bit slowly for your liking, are we? Well, we'll
:12:56. > :13:00.try and sort that out later! Everett was obsessed by the sea. In
:13:00. > :13:04.1898 he embarked on a series of voyages. Even dragged his poor wife
:13:04. > :13:08.on a long crossing to Tasmania for their honeymoon. It didn't end well.
:13:08. > :13:11.It may not have been as miserable as one of Hardy's plot lines but it
:13:11. > :13:15.wasn't far short. Everett decided women, painting and the sea just
:13:15. > :13:20.didn't mix. No prizes for guessing what he chose. Put it this way, it
:13:20. > :13:22.wasn't his wife. They eventually separated. Edwardians loved
:13:22. > :13:29.gallivanting around, and in many ways, Everett was the ultimate
:13:29. > :13:34.Edwardian adventurer. What a great life he would have had out here on
:13:34. > :13:39.his boat. So maybe I should choose a painting which encompasses
:13:39. > :13:42.Everett's great passion, the sea. I'm intrigued by Ernest Brennecke,
:13:42. > :13:46.the American author who was to write the book on Hardy and the
:13:46. > :13:50.landscapes around him. We're pretty sure that the original book the
:13:50. > :13:54.pictures were destined for was never published. So did any of the
:13:54. > :13:56.paintings ever see the light of day? Well, a year later, in 1925,
:13:56. > :14:01.Brennecke published an unauthorised biography called The Life Of Thomas
:14:01. > :14:09.Hardy, a work not welcomed by Thomas Hardy himself. So could they
:14:09. > :14:14.have appeared there? Well, I'm in luck. I've managed to get hold of a
:14:14. > :14:23.copy. Here it is in the book, and we can clearly see, that is
:14:23. > :14:30.Everett's painting of Max Gate. Thomas Hardy's home. And a there's
:14:30. > :14:35.one more as well. There we go. Puddletown Heath. And this is the
:14:35. > :14:39.only one in the book in colour. The rest of them were black-and-white,
:14:39. > :14:44.what they call aquatint. But this book does provide some other clues
:14:44. > :14:49.which are quite interesting. First of all, the front cover, Brennecke
:14:49. > :14:53.was not shy in coming forward. He claims this is the first biography
:14:53. > :14:56.of England's foremost novelist poet. He says it is a work which will
:14:56. > :15:04.probably always stand as the most authoritative and comprehensive
:15:04. > :15:09.book on the subject. Inside, we get a small sense of why Hardy was not
:15:10. > :15:14.keen on this work. Brennecke writes of Hardy - when he is small,
:15:14. > :15:22.somewhat stooped and kindly in manner. For Hardy, that must have
:15:22. > :15:26.been an abomination. Remember, Brennecke had stayed with him at
:15:27. > :15:35.Max Gate, and this would have been a betrayal for Hardy. Some of these
:15:35. > :15:38.are not in the collection I have seen. This one, Hardy's Cottage,
:15:38. > :15:43.not amongst the paintings I have seen at Dorset County Museum.
:15:43. > :15:48.Another one here, a great picture of Dorchester high street, with
:15:48. > :15:52.swirling clouds overhead, a very bold clock tower. Again, it is not
:15:52. > :15:56.in the collection. It makes you wonder what has happened to those
:15:56. > :16:02.paintings. The only thing we know is that they have not made it back
:16:02. > :16:09.to Dorset to be part of the full collection. One of the paintings
:16:09. > :16:14.that did make it into the biography is Max Gate, the home that Hardy
:16:14. > :16:18.designed and had built. Clearly it was a special place for him. He
:16:18. > :16:23.lived here for 40 years and he was famous for his hospitality. He
:16:23. > :16:30.regularly had people round for tea, round to stay. So perhaps it is no
:16:30. > :16:35.surprise that John Everett came and painted here. The custodian of Max
:16:35. > :16:42.Gate is a Hardy scholar and enthusiasts, Jacqueline Dillion.
:16:42. > :16:45.You will like this, Jacqueline, a picture painted in 1924 by John
:16:45. > :16:53.Everett of Max Gate, pretty much at this angle. Do you think that could
:16:54. > :16:58.have been Hardy himself sitting there? I think it could very well
:16:59. > :17:04.have been. He could be writing a poem, he wrote lots of poems here,
:17:04. > :17:11.set in the garden. -- sat in the garden. So this could be a still-
:17:11. > :17:17.life artist painting a portrait, almost? I think it could be. Would
:17:17. > :17:22.he appreciate these, did he like art? He loved art. From an early
:17:22. > :17:26.age, he had a strong reaction to art. He even considered a career as
:17:26. > :17:32.an art critic, and he spent a lot of time in art museums. In his
:17:32. > :17:39.fiction, art plays a huge part, it is painting with words, really.
:17:39. > :17:43.I right in thinking that Hardy's wife, Emma, was a painter?
:17:43. > :17:50.painted, his sisters painted as well. It was much more important in
:17:50. > :17:55.those times than it is today. did Hardy make of Ernest Brennecke
:17:55. > :18:00.Jnr's book? It was a shock to the system in many ways. There was some
:18:00. > :18:04.gossip, some conjecture, Brennecke really made some things up, and
:18:04. > :18:09.Hardy was disappointed to see this. But at the same time, it prompted
:18:09. > :18:14.him to write his own autobiography. So it was a catalyst, actually?
:18:14. > :18:19.Completely, yes. And the task of writing his own autobiography
:18:19. > :18:24.really occupied him for the rest of the life, and beyond! Because his
:18:24. > :18:32.wife finished it off and published it as her own. So, Brennecke had a
:18:32. > :18:36.pretty profound effect on him? did, yes. When Hardy moved in here
:18:36. > :18:40.in 1885, Dorchester was a very different place. To find out more,
:18:40. > :18:45.I have met up with a local resident. What would Dorchester have been
:18:46. > :18:49.like in Hardy's time? He chose to live here. He was born only three
:18:49. > :18:54.miles away, and never lost his affection for the place. Actually,
:18:54. > :19:00.when he built Max Gate, it was just beyond the boundaries of Dorchester.
:19:00. > :19:04.But the town has grown since then, to the west, to the south and to
:19:05. > :19:11.the east, but it has never grown on this side. This was the edge of
:19:11. > :19:15.town, not only in Hardy's day, but when it was the Roman town of
:19:15. > :19:19.Durnovaria as well. He wanted to preserve life as he knew it when he
:19:19. > :19:24.was growing up as a lad, because things were changing fast. In his
:19:24. > :19:28.lifetime, they changed faster and faster. Something which still goes
:19:28. > :19:34.on today - he was a Dorset boy, he loved this part of the world. He
:19:34. > :19:39.spent most of his time here. Why do you think the Wessex landscape was
:19:39. > :19:42.so important to him and to his writing, what was it about it?
:19:42. > :19:46.he was growing up, he would have been very aware of the relationship
:19:46. > :19:51.between man and the rest of nature. It was something which was
:19:51. > :19:54.important to him. Despite his celebrity and so on, he never for
:19:55. > :19:58.example changed sides on the issue of fox-hunting, he thought it was
:19:59. > :20:02.an appalling thing. And so he wasn't doing himself any favours in
:20:02. > :20:08.terms of the great and the good and the gentry by continuing to oppose
:20:08. > :20:17.fox-hunting. And as a writer, as a poet, he was very radical. The
:20:17. > :20:21.subtitle of course of Tess of the D'Urbervilles is, a pure woman.
:20:21. > :20:26.Wow! What a challenge to the Victorian morals of the time! He
:20:26. > :20:30.was ahead of his time. And it would be interesting for him to come back
:20:30. > :20:35.and see how the town has both changed and yet stayed the same.
:20:35. > :20:37.And we have a bit of both in Dorchester.
:20:37. > :20:47.Many artists of the time were captivated by the Dorset
:20:47. > :20:48.
:20:48. > :20:52.countryside. Artist Frederick Whitehead was another English
:20:52. > :20:58.eccentric in the Everett mould. He roamed Dorset in a Gypsy caravan.
:20:58. > :21:04.White had spent six months of the year living in the Rambler, as he
:21:04. > :21:08.called it. His wife dressed as a Gypsy and told people's fortunes,
:21:08. > :21:12.while Whitehead put brush to canvas. I have been told that one of his
:21:12. > :21:22.paintings has mysteriously ended up here in Wareham, at the council
:21:22. > :21:28.
:21:28. > :21:34.offices. My goodness, and there it is. That is absolutely huge. The
:21:34. > :21:38.first thing which is very apparent is that this is a different style
:21:38. > :21:42.to Everett. It is more naturalistic, it does not have those slightly
:21:42. > :21:46.softer impressionistic sides to it. But it is the scale of it, it just
:21:46. > :21:51.sits here in the stairwell, and half the time I think people come
:21:51. > :21:55.and go and do not when I came in, the guy said, what are you here
:21:56. > :21:59.for? Painting, what painting? Oh, that painting. It really makes you
:21:59. > :22:03.think how many paintings like this are hidden in random buildings
:22:03. > :22:07.around the country. Here, you cannot get in because of security,
:22:07. > :22:11.it is very much behind locked doors, and no-one quite knows why it is
:22:11. > :22:15.here, where it came from, they just know that at some point it was
:22:15. > :22:21.donating. Right at the bottom there is a small inscription, which says,
:22:21. > :22:26.the Purbeck Hills from the Frome. So it is a view of the Frome River,
:22:26. > :22:31.looking across the meadows. It says, presented to this club in 1907. It
:22:31. > :22:41.sounds like it when from the artist to some sort of club, who I guess
:22:41. > :22:46.he in turn gifted it to the council. A bit of a mystery. Meanwhile, back
:22:46. > :22:54.to the challenge to choose one of Everett's paintings. So car, I have
:22:54. > :22:59.seen Sandsfoot Castle, Gad Cliff and Max Gate among others. But
:22:59. > :23:06.which one should hang in the museum? Which one best represents
:23:06. > :23:16.Hardy's Wessex? Perhaps Maumbury Rings in Dorchester would give me
:23:16. > :23:21.
:23:21. > :23:25.some inspiration. Now this, I'm pretty sure this is the spot. The
:23:25. > :23:29.rings will sweep away from you. The trees are still there, in fact I
:23:29. > :23:34.think there's more trees now. You cannot really see the church in the
:23:34. > :23:39.background. But this is pretty much exactly it, I think. And Maumbury
:23:39. > :23:43.Rings is still favoured by artists today. The Dorchester Art Club is
:23:43. > :23:46.out in force. Local artist John Grant is going to give me a
:23:46. > :23:50.painting master class. I don't think I have picked up a paintbrush
:23:50. > :23:54.since I was at school. It is great to see so many people appear
:23:54. > :24:00.painting. We are looking at the Everett painting, which was from
:24:00. > :24:06.about this spot. What is it that draws you guys up here? It is the
:24:06. > :24:11.natural scenery of Dorset, all this area. Quite a sight, isn't it?
:24:11. > :24:21.These bold, sweeping curves. Yes, quite. Right, would you like to
:24:21. > :24:23.
:24:23. > :24:27.have a go? Yes, OK. Let's swap seats, then. I suggest you draw in
:24:27. > :24:32.your eye level. Hold it between your fingers. I have never done it
:24:32. > :24:39.before. Not everybody does it this way, but... Just a line across
:24:39. > :24:45.there, to break the ice. Not much, but yes. Now look for a place to
:24:45. > :24:53.put your focal point. So, this is as far as the eye can see, really?
:24:53. > :25:03.Yes, that's right. And you have got this big sweep coming round here,
:25:03. > :25:11.probably it comes off the page. I suggest you use this large brush
:25:11. > :25:18.and sweep that across. It will start to run down in that way.
:25:18. > :25:21.That's it. Maumbury Rings is featured in The Mayor Of
:25:22. > :25:25.Casterbridge. Hardy describes the grisly tale of the hanging of a
:25:25. > :25:29.woman for the murder of her husband. Thankfully, the atmosphere today is
:25:29. > :25:39.a bit more laid-back. That's giving you the start for the right sort of
:25:39. > :25:45.
:25:45. > :25:50.John, I'm not sure what else to do with it. I think the time has come
:25:50. > :25:55.to leave it there for today. Yes, OK, but take it that you have got a
:25:55. > :26:00.standing invitation to join the Dorchester Art Club whenever you
:26:00. > :26:06.like. Thank you very much for coming to join us in our rural
:26:06. > :26:11.idyll here. Just a few more painting locations to seek out. Of
:26:11. > :26:17.course, the famous White Horse, Stinsford Church and Woolbridge
:26:17. > :26:22.Manor, where Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Angel spent their
:26:22. > :26:26.wedding night. So, an abundance of wealth, so difficult to choose just
:26:26. > :26:32.one of those paintings to go on display. But I think I have made my
:26:32. > :26:37.mind up. I'm off to the Dorset County Museum to meet up again with
:26:37. > :26:43.art historian Gwen Yarker and see my they're painting on display.
:26:44. > :26:47.Hello. It is on display, fantastic, Puddletown Heath, aka Egdon - what
:26:47. > :26:51.do you make of my Everett choice? think you have made a very good
:26:51. > :26:57.choice. It would not have been the one I thought you would have made,
:26:57. > :27:01.but it is very dramatic, a very strong Hardyesque image of Dorset.
:27:01. > :27:09.What did you think it might have they're? I thought you might have
:27:09. > :27:15.they're Maumbury Rings, Sandsfoot Castle or perhaps even Max Gate,
:27:15. > :27:19.but I can see why this has won out. Actually, Maumbury Rings came very
:27:19. > :27:24.close, but perhaps it was more about the author and his home,
:27:24. > :27:29.rather than the landscape. Yes, this gives you the isolation, the
:27:29. > :27:35.bleakness of the Heath, I think it is a very powerful image, well done.
:27:35. > :27:40.We found the Brennecke, which was very exciting. His painting appears
:27:40. > :27:47.in it, and it is the only one in colour, which is curious. And there
:27:47. > :27:53.are some I have not seen before, Dorchester high street, Hardy's
:27:53. > :27:58.Cottage, presumably they are missing, are they? I have no idea,
:27:59. > :28:02.presumably they are still out there. The one of the main street in
:28:02. > :28:10.Dorchester is of future interest, and it would be wonderful to be
:28:10. > :28:14.able to track them down and reunite them with the rest of the series.
:28:14. > :28:21.That pretty much concludes my journey around Wessex. Anyone who
:28:21. > :28:27.has ever picked up a Thomas Hardy novel or recited some of his poetry
:28:27. > :28:30.will know exactly what this countryside means to the writer.
:28:30. > :28:33.But to see Everett's paintings detailing the landscape as Thomas
:28:33. > :28:37.hardy himself would have seen it is a privilege. And the really
:28:37. > :28:43.exciting thing is the potential for further discoveries. Everett's
:28:43. > :28:49.missing Wessex works must be out there somewhere, alongside who